


(and in their song) all magic flows

by Elsin



Category: American Girls: Kit - Various Authors
Genre: Alternate Universe - East of the Sun and West of the Moon Fusion, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Magic, Slow Burn, lots of folklore references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:46:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21845401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsin/pseuds/Elsin
Summary: A fairytale story.In which bears are met, mistakes are made, and perhaps it is not impossible to travel east of the sun and west of the moon.
Relationships: Charlie Kittredge/Ruthie Smithens
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	(and in their song) all magic flows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blueorangecrush](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueorangecrush/gifts).



As the only daughter of Lord Stanley Smithens, the warden of the Eastern lands, at the age of fifteen Ruthie Smithens was sent away to the Riversedge castle. It was the seat of power over all the realm which lay east of the sun and west of the moon, and could only be reached by the enchanted ships built by the ruling House.

When Ruthie first boarded a moonship she thought it a great adventure, and regretted only that she could not share it with her best friend—commoner girls were not welcome in the Riversedge castle except as servants, and Ruthie hardly wanted to make a servant of her friend.

“Don’t worry,” she said to Kit as she gave her a last hug before boarding the vessel. “Most people don’t stay at court year-round—I’ll be back before you know it!”

She hugged her parents, and left behind the town of Redadale where she had grown up.

The moonship raised its silver sails and took off out of the harbor, faster than any ship Ruthie had ever known. And even with that it was three days and three nights before they came to the Riversedge castle, east of the sun and west of the moon.

Her enthusiasm had not dwindled by then; if anything, it had grown. And when she saw the Riversedge castle, her heartbeat quickened.

Its glittering crystal spires stood so high they pierced the few scattered clouds in the sky, and they sparkled with all the colors of the rainbow in the red light of dawn. All the doors and window frames were of purest silver and brightest gold, and the lawns were of a grass so green that it almost hurt to look at.

The captain of the moonship bowed her down the gangplank, and she was met by three finely dressed girls about her own age. They smiled and curtsied shallowly to her—a greeting between noble girls. Ruthie returned the gesture easily.

“Come,” said one of the girls gaily. “Join us in the Riversedge Palace!”

And she and the others swept Ruthie up the gleaming marble path from the shore and brought her through the silver doors, patterned with bright gold inlay.

Inside the palace was bright and airy and alive with colors. Smartly uniformed footmen stood at appropriate intervals, the guards’ sword hilts were polished to the brightest shine, and the noblemen and women all wore jewel-bright clothing. Ruthie felt a little underdressed next to them, though she knew her own midnight-blue gown suited her well.

“The Lady Ruthie Smithens,” said one of her guides carelessly to a nearby footman. “Show her to her chambers.”

“Yes, milady,” said the footman, bowing deeply to her. He turned to Ruthie, and bowed again. “If you please, milady, it’s right this way.”

She followed him deeper into the castle. With every turn she expected the place to change; expected there to be  _ some _ sign that a part of the building was not considered as important. There was none. The scenery changed a little, to be sure; as they ventured towards the living areas, rich burnished wood became more and more incorporated. But it never diminished in quality.

“Here are your chambers, milady,” said the footman finally, opening a beautiful blue door for her to step through. “If you should need anything, you have only to ring this bell—” he gestured to a wall fixing near the door— “and someone will be with you at once to deliver whatever it is you desire.”

“Thank you,” said Ruthie to the footman, who blinked at her. “I’m sorry, I never asked—what’s your name?”

“…Tristan, milady,” he said slowly. Then he bowed deeply to her, and when he straightened he was smiling. “Always at your service.”

Then he turned and walked away, leaving Ruthie a little puzzled in his wake.

She entered her rooms, more opulent by far than anything at home, and cautiously poked through them. Even standing here, it was hard to believe that all this was for  _ her _ ; she was only the daughter of the warden of the Eastern lands, and yet this suite was fit, she thought, for a princess.

Returning to the door, she carefully rang the bell. Nothing happened for a moment, but then she heard a voice behind her and flinched rather badly.

“What is it milady desires?”

She whirled around and saw a red-haired girl standing there, younger than her, dressed simply but crisply. When Ruthie turned to her she gave a deep curtsy.

“I am sorry to have startled milady,” she said softly.

“It’s all right,” said Ruthie. “I just wasn’t expecting you to show up in here.” Without going through the door, she didn’t say; it was implied well enough, she thought. After a heavy pause, during which the girl slowly straightened but kept her head bowed, she spoke again. “I wanted to know—is there anything I should know about? Anywhere I need to be? I only just arrived today, you see, and I’m not quite certain how I should be going about things.”

So the girl explained the basic rhythms of life in the Riversedge palace to her, and helped her exchange her midnight gown for one in bright blue and green with glittering white accents. And when that was all done, Ruthie asked for her name.

“I’m Nell, milady,” said the girl.

“Then thank you, Nell,” said Ruthie, and the girl flushed bright pink. “You can go now.”

“As milady desires,” said Nell, and she turned and was gone. Ruthie blinked at the spot where she’d been; she wasn’t certain her eyes weren’t simply playing tricks on her. But no—Nell had left.

Ruthie put the mystery aside for the time being, and made her way up to the court dinner in the spectacular main hall.

After dinner, there was dancing; and Ruthie found herself gazing into the face of a young man with pale skin, hair so black it shone blue, and electric blue eyes. He smiled at her.

“I’m Richard,” he said. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

“Yes, your highness,” said Ruthie. She would have curtsied, but it was the middle of a dance; she could not do so without disrupting the movement.

“Well, I do hope you like it,” said Prince Richard.

“It’s beautiful,” said Ruthie, spinning under his arm. “I’ve never seen the like.”

“And you never will again,” he said, “unless you somehow find another palace built east of the sun and west of the moon.”

* * *

Three days later, standing on a balcony and gazing up at the aurora blazing overhead in colors Ruthie had only ever glimpsed faintly before, Prince Richard asked her to marry him.

“What?” she said. “I—what?”

“Will you marry me, Lady Ruthie Smithens?”

“I—I don’t know,” she stammered. “I can’t say—I—your highness, we’ve only known each other three days!”

“I know,” he said patiently, “but Ruthie, you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever known. And you’re kind, and you get along with everyone just wonderfully—I know you’d make a fabulous queen, sitting by my side.”

“May I have some time to decide?” asked Ruthie. “I’ve never made such a big decision before.”

“Very well,” said Prince Richard. “You may have three days.”

Three days wasn’t nearly long enough, but Ruthie swallowed down her panic, said, “Thank you, your highness,” and curtsied to him before leaving the balcony as swiftly as she could without it being obvious that all she wanted to do was  _ run _ .

Somehow she made it back to her chambers, where she blindly rang her bell before collapsing face-first onto her bed.

“Milady?” Nell’s voice came then, sounding distinctly worried. “Milady, what’s the matter?”

“Prince Richard asked me to  _ marry _ him,” she said into the pillow.

“I’m sorry, milady, I didn’t quite—” said Nell before Ruthie brought her head up a little and cut her off.

“Prince Richard asked me to  _ marry _ him,” she said. It didn’t seem any less surreal the second time. Behind her Nell sucked in a sharp breath.

“Oh, milady,” she said, “do be—careful—of him. His mother’s a sorceress, you know—I’ve heard rumors the prince may be the same.”

“What’s the matter if he is?” asked Ruthie, turning to face Nell’s wide, worried eyes.

“A sorcerer can twist your mind,” she said, “make you see things that aren’t there, hear silent sounds—make you think one thing is another. And the prince is—” She cut herself off.

“The prince is?”

“Oh, milady, don’t be angry with me,” said Nell, hands fluttering at her sides. “I know he’s been nothing but kind to you, but he’s another side, a harder side, and—you won’t want to see it, milady.”

“He gave me three days to ponder his proposal,” said Ruthie slowly. “I think—” She shook her head. It was true, what Nell said—Prince Richard had been almost nothing but kind to her, and she did not wish to think ill of him, but she had only known him three days. Nell had known him much longer, and she seemed downright afraid.

* * *

Prince Richard asked her again the next day, and the day after that, to marry him, and each time Ruthie reminded him that he’d given her three days. On the third day he knocked thrice upon her door just as Nell was finishing lacing her into her dress for the morning.

When she opened the door, he swept her a bow, smiling broadly.

“O, Lady Ruthie,” he said. “Will you marry me?”

“I cannot marry you without my father’s approval,” she said.

“Which I have right here,” said Prince Richard, producing a thin letter from his tunic. Ruthie took it slowly and unfolded it; it certainly looked like her father had written it, and it did indeed give his daughter’s marriage to Prince Richard his blessing.

It took three days to sail across the sea on a moonship. Ruthie had been at the Riversedge court for six days. That Prince Richard had the letter now could only mean one of two things—that he’d asked for her father’s blessing before she’d even arrived for him to meet her, or he’d sent away for it the second he’d laid eyes on her.

_ That’s romantic, you know, _ some part of her whispered in her ear.  _ Love at first sight! It’s just like something out of a fairytale. _ But still a chill went down her spine.

“I cannot marry you without my mother’s blessing,” she said.

“I have that too,” said Prince Richard, and so he did.

There were goosebumps on her arms, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up; there was something not quite right about all this, but she found she couldn’t quite focus.

“I cannot agree to marry you today,” she said, trembling. “I’m sorry, your highness.” And she stepped back into her room, shut the door, and threw the bolt before retreating into the corner to shiver for the next who-knew-how-long.

The next thing she knew Nell’s hands were on her shoulders and the younger girl was peering anxiously at her.

“Milady? Milady, are you quite all right?”

“No,” said Ruthie, hardly knowing what words she spoke. “I—I can’t think.”

“Here,” said Nell, and she slid a golden band onto each of Ruthie’s arms, working each one up under the sleeves of her gown until they sat nearly at her shoulders. Abruptly her head cleared.

“I think you were right, Nell,” she said very quietly. “About the prince I mean. And his mother.”

“I know,” said Nell. “Listen. I know what’s to happen next—you must listen! Else it will be the end of you.”

“What’s that, then?” asked Ruthie, a new fear growing within her.

“The queen will offer you a gift,” said Nell. “A bearskin coat. Don’t refuse it. You don’t want to see her get ugly. But whatever happens—I ought not to explain too much, or she’ll suspect something’s amiss—the armbands will protect you from mind-magic. Never take them off, and especially never put on the coat without them!” She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “Your shift,” she said, “it’s magic of a different sort—it will stick with you, no matter what might happen to anything else you wear.”

“All right,” said Ruthie, now much more afraid than she had been. “I—thank you, Nell.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” said Nell, and she disappeared from the room. At once there was a knock upon the door, and Ruthie opened it gingerly.

It wasn’t Prince Richard on the other side, thankfully. It was Tristan.

“Tristan,” said Ruthie, and she managed to summon up a tremulous smile for him.

He bowed to her. “Milady,” he said, no trace of a smile to be found. “Her Majesty has summoned you to the throne room.”

“Then lead on,” said Ruthie, a bravery she didn’t truly feel forced into her voice. “I’m afraid I don’t yet know the way.”

The throne room was magnificent beyond even the rest of the palace, its windows stained glass and each pane placed  _ just so _ such that it would scatter the light into a thousand tiny colors. Ruthie found that she couldn’t quite appreciate it as she normally would.

Two-thirds of the way to the thrones, she stopped, and gave the deepest curtsy she’d ever made outside of practicing for royalty. She stayed there, waiting for further instruction.

“Rise, my dear,” said the queen in a smiling voice. Ruthie rose.

“Your majesty,” she murmured.

“Come closer, my dear,” said the queen. Ruthie did.

The queen was older, but she wore her age well; it draped her like a cloak and gave her a dignity and poise she’d not otherwise have had. And she was still beautiful, as Ruthie could tell she must have been all her life.

“Now,” said the queen when Ruthie was mere feet from her throne, “what’s this I hear about you refusing to marry my son?”

“I have known him only six days,” said Ruthie, “and I don’t know—if I could have more time, I know I could—”

“No,” said the queen, “the time for  _ more time _ has passed. You were given three days. It has been three days, three days of my son wasting away from his lovesick heart. What is your answer?”

“If I must give it now,” said Ruthie, “then my answer can only be no, your majesty. I am sorry.”

The queen gave her a long look, then sighed artfully. “No,” she said, “it is  _ I _ who must apologize. You are only a young girl, after all. Here—pages!” A door in the side of the throne room opened, and two young boys entered, carrying a thick white fur.

“What is this?” asked Ruthie, though she had her suspicions.

“It is a coat,” said the queen. “I had it made specially for you—go on, try it on.”

“Your Majesty is too kind,” said Ruthie, and she let the pages help her slip the heavy white coat on.

At once she thought she understood Nell’s warnings a little more; her body writhed and her knees buckled, and she let out a cry that turned to a roar halfway through, and—

It ended. She felt strange and heavy, and her body was all out of sorts.

“What was that?” she asked, then froze. Her voice was all changed, strange and low and rumbling.

The queen’s smile had turned hard and cruel. “My dear,” she said, “your parents signed over your marital rights when they sent you here. You cannot simply say  _ no _ . But I’ll give you a chance—you’ll be able to take that skin off at night. If you can find a man who will live with you a year and a day and let you sleep next to him in his bed, all the while never looking upon your old face in the light, then you may instead marry  _ him _ . If you cannot find such a man in seven years, or if even one man should lay eyes upon you in the light, then you will return here and marry my son. And do not tell this man of our bargain—should you do so it will be annulled and you will return to marry Richard.”

“All right,” said Ruthie, for what else could she say? She turned and padded clumsily from the throne room, leaving behind the shreds of all her clothes but her shift; she understood, then, why Nell had given it to her.

And so she went out into the world, and left the castle east of the sun and west of the moon (for it is always easier to leave such a place than it is to get there) and began her search for a man who would act as the queen had ordained.

* * *

There were upsides to her new skin, Ruthie found; she could run fast and far and had much more strength than she did as a human. And there was a magic tied to it; she found that she could reshape the world around her to a degree, and she took great pleasure in certain of her warpings.

But men, she soon learned, did not much like being approached by a great white bear who could talk, and in her fruitless search her worries mounted.

The Northern lands did not want her around, and she left them swiftly. Next she traveled to the Western lands, where there were mountains and marshes and she had a miserable six months. After that she went to the Southern lands, which were too hot for her under all her fur; in those five miserable months she cursed the queen for giving her a winter coat.

In the Midlands, heart of the kingdom, she stayed a whole year, growing more and more discouraged, for it was nearly two years now since she’d first been cursed. And in the Midlands she might well have stayed. But—

She did not want to go to the Eastern lands. She did not want to go home and be unrecognized, a beast and a stranger in her own homeland. But—well. As autumn began turning to winter, she knew that she would have to travel there in the end.

And so in October, two years after she had left the Eastern lands to go east of the sun and west of the moon, Ruthie returned there in a bear’s skin and began her search anew.

* * *

There was not enough wood, and not enough of it was dry. Charlie could tell that from a glance at the wood pile; his arms ached from wielding the axe and his shirt was soaked through with sweat from his labor, though now he shivered in the cold.

There wasn’t enough wood to heat the old house all the way through, and everyone was grumpy about it.

He was, really, far too old to still be living at home; he knew it was the talk of the town that he’d not yet married anyone at the ripe old age of twenty-two. But his father was growing older and there was no one else in the Kittredge household to take over the most intensive duties.

The freshly cut wood went next to the meager pile to dry, and Charlie selected the driest pieces to take inside. 

“Oh, good,” said his mother tersely. “You’re here. Feed the fire a bit, would you?”

And Charlie did as he was asked, while his mother and Mrs. Howard made their supper, taking what they could and stretching it out to feed all the household.

Supper was a rather subdued affair; there were no children in the house, and had not been for years, and all of them knew that the coming winter would bring fresh hardships to them. They ate, and cleared the plates away, and gathered about the fire to finish whatever things had come with the evening.

Kit stayed at the table, hunched over a prized, weathered notebook, a candle flickering beside her. The older adults were mostly speaking amongst themselves; Charlie, still weary from his day’s labor, sat back and watched it all.

And that was when there came three knocks at the door.

“I’ll get it,” said Charlie, who was after all not particularly doing anything. And so he went to the door and opened it, and saw a large white bear standing there.

“Good evening,” said the bear, and Charlie blinked.

He had not met a talking animal before, but he knew well enough that they existed, and so he smiled at the bear. “Good evening,” he said. “Is there a reason you’ve come all the way to our humble abode?”

“Are you the eldest son of this house?” asked the bear.

“Yes,” said Charlie.

“Then would you come away with me? If you do I can make your family rich beyond belief, and you yourself would live in comfort too.”

Charlie stared for a long minute before finally speaking. “I’m afraid I can’t answer that this instant,” he said. “I’d invite you in, but I’m not certain you would fit through the door—will you wait? I must consult my family.”

“Of course I’ll wait,” said the bear, sounding a little offended. “And I don’t mind being outside, no. Go on. Take as long as you need.”

“Someone will be back soon,” said Charlie, “to update you, if nothing else.” And he nodded politely to the bear before stepping back inside the house and closing the door. Once he’d done that he leaned back against the wall and let out a heavy sigh.

“Who was that?” asked Kit from the kitchen doorway.

“There’s a bear outside,” said Charlie. “It wants to take me away to… somewhere. Not entirely clear where. It promised that if I went away, the family would be made rich, and I’d live just as nicely.”

“What,” said Kit, which was fair. “ _ What. _ ”

“Come on,” said Charlie. “I’m going to explain as best as I can to everyone, back in the kitchen.”

And that was what he did. When he’d finished the brief explanation, everyone was staring at him just as Kit had, and his father stood to speak with the bear himself. Charlie followed.

“Why do you wish to take my son away?” he asked.

“Pray don’t ask me that,” said the white bear, “for I cannot say. But I can assure you he will come to no harm.”

“And what are we to do, without his strong arms here? I am not as young as I used to be.”

“You will know riches beyond measure; and if you cannot pay for something, if it must be done it still will be. There is precious little I cannot provide you with.”

“Will he return?” asked Charlie’s father. “Or are you taking him away forever?”

“Not long, not long,” said the bear.

“How long is the journey to where you would take me?” asked Charlie then.

“Oh, a day’s walking for me.”

“Then perhaps,” he said, “we could go in the morning?”

His father turned to him. “Charlie,” he said, “I don’t know if this is a good idea—”

“Dad,” said Charlie, “there’s nothing I can do here that will help you more than what the bear promises. I need to do this. I’ve got to go.” To the bear he said, “There’s a shed behind the house. I can show you there, if you’d like to spend the night relatively indoors.”

“That would be much appreciated,” said the bear, and so Charlie stepped out the door and led it around the side of the house.

“Do you have a name?” he asked.

“Not really,” said the bear. “You can call me what you want.”

“Oh,” he said, momentarily taken aback. “That’s too bad, that you haven’t a name.”

“I gave it up,” said the bear, “and I mustn’t take it back just yet.”

They’d reached the shed by then, which was a sad little thing but would still block the late autumn wind.

“I’m sorry it isn’t much,” said Charlie, “but it’s what we have.”

“I don’t mind,” said the bear. “I  _ am _ a bear, after all.” There was a pause. “Are you certain you want to come with me?” it finally asked. “I don’t want to pressure you. If you need more time, you can have it—if you need more time then  _ take _ it.”

“I’m sure,” said Charlie with a conviction he did not quite feel. “You’ve seen how we live—here I’m another mouth to feed even if I  _ do _ do work no one else does. If you can provide for all that when I leave—who am I to say no to that?”

“Very well, then,” said the bear. “I will see you in the morning.”

* * *

The next morning Charlie woke before dawn, packed himself a bundle of his meager belongings, and, after hugging his parents and Kit and saying goodbye to the boarders, he went out to meet the bear.

“Shall we?” he said, and the bear nodded its great head.

“Climb onto my back,” it said, “and hold tight to my fur. Whatever you do, do not let go!”

So Charlie climbed on, and wrapped his hands securely in the bear’s thick white fur, and they set out.

The bear at once took off at a loping run; from how the grey late-autumn landscape and dark wet trees blurred together Charlie knew they must be moving quickly indeed, but sitting astride the great bear’s back he felt more secure and at ease than he ever had upon a horse, even one going at the slowest of walks.

When the clouds had cleared enough that it was possible to see shafts of the weak noon sun shining down upon them, the bear slowed to a stop beside a clear tumbling stream, and Charlie carefully slid from its back. He was not sore, he found; nor was he stiff, not in any of the places he would have expected himself to be from a half-day’s hard riding.

“Drink,” said the bear. “I’m afraid I haven’t any food to share with you until we reach my home.”

Charlie drank, and the cold clear water refreshed him even more.

“Why am I not tired?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing much,” said the bear, sounding almost sheepish. “Just a bit of magic I picked up here and there, that’s all. You’ll feel it when we reach the castle, I’m afraid, but until then I thought it better to keep such feelings from you.”

“Oh,” said Charlie. After a short time he climbed onto the bear’s back once more, and they were off.

The clouds moved in again, and the sky darkened as they went; the damp forest thinned and ended and for a time they traveled across the dark grim moors, as before them the hazy mountains reared up. They had come far enough that Charlie, who had spent all his life in Redadale, had never seen even the shadow of these mountains before, and he wondered how far exactly they had traveled; and how such swift travel could have come to be.

The bear was magic, he supposed; that explanation would simply have to do.

They reached the mountains. Charlie, for some reason, expected the bear to slow, but it did not; instead it raced up and up and up until they’d crossed two peaks and were ascending another.

In the rocky saddle between two mountains so high they vanished into the clouds, the bear stopped, and Charlie looked down at the valley spread before them and let out an involuntary gasp.

It was green and lush at the bottom of the valley, and an alabaster palace rose at the heart of a grove of trees, glowing red in the fading sun. In spite of the fact that it was nearly winter, the trees still had their verdant foliage fully intact.

“Do you like it?” the bear asked, sounding a little anxious now, though—that couldn’t be right, Charlie was sure. “If you don’t, I can change things around.”

“It seems fine from up here,” said Charlie. “Very nice, in fact. Are we going to go down?”

“Of course,” said the bear. 

The trip down the other side of the saddle did not take place at the same breakneck pace of the rest of their journey; Charlie suspected magic was still speeding them along a little, but he could actually see the land as they passed through it. Soon enough they reached the valley, and the carved oaken doors of the palace swung silently open. The bear carried him through them easily and into a hall with what seemed to Charlie a feast greater than any he’d ever seen spread out in it.

“Climb down from my back now,” said the bear. “I’m going to give you your hunger back, all right? I’ll keep your weary aches until later.”

Charlie climbed down, and moved to sit at the table, suddenly ravenous. As he settled himself, the bear turned to leave.

“Wait,” said Charlie. “Don’t go.”

“…All right,” said the bear, though it seemed uneasy, and it settled its great white body on the floor of the hall.

At first he ate in silence, devouring the food before him; he had just enough presence of mind to know that if he went too far too fast he’d end up seeing his food again that night, but only just. When his hunger had abated some—though not gone, never gone; Charlie hadn’t had a full meal in so  _ long _ and he certainly wasn’t yet  _ done _ —he took a drink of the sparkling clean water he’d been given and turned to the bear.

“Can you tell me why you brought me here now?” he asked. “Or is it the sort of thing where you can’t  _ ever _ tell me?”

“The latter,” said the bear, “more or less. I’m sorry. But there are Rules to this, you know, and I didn’t make them.”

“That’s all right,” said Charlie. “I just thought it might be the sort of Rule that won’t let you speak of it until I’d already agreed, instead of the sort of Rule that won’t let you speak of it at all.” He paused, and ate some more. “Can I ask why  _ me _ , as opposed to someone else? I’m hardly the only young man even in Redadale, and if you can travel so far so fast I’d imagine you’d have the whole country to do with as you pleased.”

The bear shifted a little, raising its head before settling its chin back on its paws. “Surprisingly enough,” it said dryly, “most young men aren’t exactly falling over themselves to go off with strange white bears who show up unannounced.”

“I suppose not,” he said, nodding. “And most of them aren’t quite so poor either, I’d expect, that they need such a boon as you offer them.”

“No, indeed not.”

Charlie sighed and leaned back in his chair. “This is all delicious,” he said. “But I’m afraid I won’t like the consequences if I eat even one more bite.”

“Would you like to see your bedchamber? Or would you like a bath?” asked the bear.

“A bath sounds lovely,” said Charlie.

“Very well. Follow me.”

The palace’s corridors had burnished warm wood for floors, and rich tapestries lined the walls, some of them of landscapes and some of cities and some of creatures or humans. Some depicted a peculiar castle, all in crystal, with the aurora swirling around it. Charlie stopped to stare at one of these; he could hear, distantly, a chiming bell and a whisper on the wind; he reached out a hand towards the tapestry—

“Stop that,” said the bear firmly, pushing between Charlie and the tapestry. “He’s new. You can’t go playing your  _ tricks _ on him.” It was not speaking to Charlie but instead to the tapestry. Charlie laid a tentative hand on the bear’s shoulder, and at once the muddling call evaporated.

“What was  _ that _ ?” he asked.

“I’m terribly sorry,” said the bear. Charlie had the peculiar feeling that, had it been human, there would have been quite a lot of handwringing in that moment. “The tapestries are—well. Some of them get a little frisky at times. You get used to it.”

“All right,” said Charlie.

The rest of the walk to his bedchamber and adjoining bathroom passed in silence and without incident.

“Here’s your bathroom,” said the bear. “You’ll find a bath drawn already inside; there are towels too, and in your bedchamber over here there’s nightclothes set on the bed. You can wear whatever you brought, or you can wear what’s here—either is fine. There’s a bell in your bedchamber; ring it, and wish for whatever it is you want, and if it can be provided it will be.” A pause. “If you don’t need anything else tonight,” said the bear, “then I should take my leave of you.”

“Good night, then,” said Charlie.

“Good night,” said the bear. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Then the great white bear turned and padded softly from the room. Charlie, feeling an aching weariness coming over him, made his way into the bathroom and stripped out of his old, ragged clothes.

The bath, which was more like an artificial pool sunken into the floor of the room, was filled with faintly steaming water, and he lowered himself into it gladly. For many long minutes he simply sat there letting the heat soak into his sore muscles.

Eventually he took the soap by the bath’s edge and washed the sweat from his skin, and when he was done with that he raised himself out of the bath once more and wrapped himself in the softest, fluffiest,  _ whitest _ towels he’d ever had the pleasure of experiencing. Once he was dried off, he went into his new bedchamber and saw the nightclothes the bear had mentioned on the bed. They were soft and warm, and he put them on.

After hanging the towels in the bathroom, Charlie doused the candles in his bedchamber, shut the door, and fell into the enormous bed he’d been given. The feel of lying betwixt silken sheets under a down comforter wasn’t one he’d ever had before, but it wasn’t bad either.

He was very nearly asleep when he heard the door whisper open. It closed again, but there was someone else with him in his room; the sounds were not those of a great bear’s movements.

His mattress shifted a little, and his comforter twitched, both from the other side of his bed; someone had quietly joined him.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Hush,” said his companion; a girl, he thought, based on the voice. “I mean you no harm. Sleep.”

Charlie slept.

* * *

Ruthie, still in the shift that Nell had given her and with the heavy gold bands on her arms, took much longer to fall asleep. This was the first time she had gotten this far in her quest, and her heart beat swiftly at the thought that at any moment she could ruin it all.

What she hadn’t told Charlie, of course, was that there was another reason she’d chosen  _ him _ instead of someone else, and it was that she didn’t want to go all through this with someone she didn’t want to  _ marry _ .

And, well. She hadn’t spoken to Charlie Kittredge in more than two years, but all the same from what she recalled he was good and kind and in any case she knew she’d much rather marry  _ him _ than Prince Richard.

But in the end she managed to push her spinning thoughts down, and, exhausted from racing over the landscape and the magic she’d used to push herself onwards, she too fell asleep.

After that night they fell into a pattern: Ruthie woke before dawn, and rose without disturbing Charlie, putting her skin back on and becoming the great white bear once more. Then he would wake, and emerge to find a breakfast already laid out for him. Ruthie absented herself to eat her meals—she knew what she looked like, eating as a bear, and she hated for anyone to see her doing so.

She usually left him to his own devices in the mornings, and roamed the palace or the grounds she’d made, and returned to converse with him in the afternoon or evening. What he did with his time she didn’t entirely know; she didn’t ask, and he didn’t say, and while she could have of course asked the palace it didn’t feel right. She knew he was doing nothing terrible nor destructive, and that was enough for her.

In January, one evening after dinner, he asked her if she had a library.

“Yes,” she said. “What kind of library do you mean?”

“Well,” he said, turning unfocused eyes on the sitting room fireplace, “you know—we weren’t always so poor. And when I was about fifteen—six years ago now, almost seven—I was supposed to go to the royal university in Dolvinden, in the Midlands. But that was when the hard times hit us. Dad used to be a wainwright, a good one, but—well. No one wants to spend good money on new wagons when they haven’t enough even to feed themselves.”

“So you stayed home,” said Ruthie, who had already known all of this.

“So I stayed home,” said Charlie, who had no way of knowing she’d already known. He sighed, and ran a hand over his hair. “I’m a bit worried about Kit now, you know,” he said.

“Kit?” said Ruthie, keeping her rough bear’s voice as even as she could—the white bear who’d spirited Charlie away ought not know his sister’s name, after all, when they’d not spoken so directly of her yet.

“My sister,” said Charlie. “Anyway. She’s always been—angry—about how House Riversedge treated Redadale, and it only got worse when her friend Ruthie went to their castle, east of the sun and west of the moon, and didn’t come back. But she’s always had to put her all into supporting our family; I worry that without that need she might go and do something rash.”

“Oh,” said Ruthie. She hadn’t put that worry together herself before, but she wasn’t so very surprised to hear Charlie voice it. Kit was a realist, and always had been, and it was no great shock that a rage might have risen in her. “What was it you were planning to study, anyway?”

“I wasn’t entirely sure,” he said, shrugging. “I did consider mathematics as well as magic.”

“I’ve made something of a study of magic myself, these past few years,” said Ruthie. “But come—you wanted to see a library, right?”

“Right,” said Charlie, and he followed her down the corridor.

“Why didn’t you just ask for one?” she asked.

“I tried, a time or two. Didn’t get one—was it supposed to do that?”

“I… don’t know.” Ruthie gave a halfhearted bear-shrug. “I don’t know all the secrets of this palace.” Which was annoying; she rather thought she  _ ought _ to, considering that she’d  _ made _ the damn thing, but it kept up an irritating habit of surprising her with such tics. “Anyway,” she said, “we’re here.”

Before her a simple green door swung open, and she stepped through it and to the side. Charlie came into the room and stopped dead.

“This is… a lot,” he said weakly.

“I may have copied as many as I’ve come across,” said Ruthie. “It gets lonely being a talking bear, you know. Anyway. Ask the library for what you want—it should send you on your way. If it doesn’t, come to me about it and I’ll set it straight.”

“All right,” said Charlie, looking entranced. He stayed there, and Ruthie left him to his business until it was half an hour past midnight and he’d not yet come to bed; she then poked her nose back into the library.

He was asleep on his folded arms, several books spread out around him. Ruthie nudged him gently with her nose, but he didn’t stir, much less wake; so she sighed and went to their room. There she took off her skin and took a hood to pull low over her face; if she was careful he wouldn’t wake, but she could not risk him seeing her face.

The library door opened silently before her, and when she got close to Charlie she took a deep breath, murmured the simplest sleep-spell she knew, and spun a glittering thread from her fingertips to fall over him. She didn’t know a great deal of human magic; most of her knowledge was the instinctual animal magic the bearskin lent her. Still, she knew  _ some _ —especially how to ward against mind-magic—and the sleep-spell was practically a child’s trick.

When she was certain Charlie wouldn’t wake, she leaned down and hoisted him in her arms; he was bigger than her by quite a decent margin, but walking around each day as a bear had strengthened Ruthie greatly, and it was not unduly difficult for her to carry him back to their room, where she placed him gently down on the bed and climbed in on the other side. She lifted the sleep-spell after that; as simple as it was, it could be a bit finicky if left too long.

She was nearly asleep when his breathing changed, and he said, ever-so-softly, “Who are you  _ really _ ?”

“That I cannot say,” she said, even softer. “Please don’t ask me.”

“All right,” said Charlie. “Good night, then.”

“Good night,” she whispered, voice catching in her throat, and she curled away from him, doing her absolute utmost to choke down her sobs and keep her tears locked away. She didn’t even know  _ why _ she was crying—she hadn’t cried in two years. The first few months of her exile had been sorry, tearful affairs, but after that—

Ruthie was strong. Ruthie was—she didn’t  _ cry _ , not now, not over such silly things.

“Are you all right?” Charlie asked quietly.

“I’m fine,” she said, though her voice trembled over the words and she knew he didn’t believe her.

Behind her, the sheets rustled a little as he shifted.

“Would… would you like a hug?” he asked her, hesitant, and Ruthie curled in on herself silently for a moment more.

“Yes,” she breathed. “I—yes.” And she turned away from her side of the bed and moved towards the middle; across from her Charlie did the same, till they met in the middle and he put gentle arms around her shoulders.

It was the first reciprocal human-to-human contact that Ruthie had felt in more than two years, and it didn’t entirely surprise her—though it  _ did _ frustrate her, a little—when she began to cry harder.

Charlie didn’t shush her, or tell her it was all going to be all right; instead he just held her, and let her cry herself to sleep against his shoulder.

* * *

When he woke up, the girl was gone; only the rumpled bedsheets and the stiff, salty residue of her tears in his nightshirt remained of her presence. That wasn’t exactly unusual—she was never there when he woke up, after all. Still, he hoped she was all right; she was usually nearly silent, as was he, and he’d never touched her before—he’d never tried.

Last night he’d held her as she cried, and he didn’t like to think what might have happened to cause such a breakdown in her. But he couldn’t lie abed pondering things forever; there was food to eat and books to read, and he had a whole library at his disposal.

Charlie got up and dressed for the day; he never now wore any of the weathered clothes he had brought to the palace with him, for the ones it provided were both higher in quality and softer against his skin.

He ate swiftly and returned to the library, where his books were spread out just as he had left them. Looking at them in the morning, he found he had to laugh a little; they were an eclectic collection, to be sure, but there had been so  _ much _ he’d wanted to study at the university! Of course that hadn’t come to pass, but still he hungered for the knowledge.

His fingers tapped across the books as he considered them; in the end he pulled a book on household charms towards him, leaving aside others on elemental magics and natural history and just ordinary history.

After an hour or so he sighed and pushed back his chair, rubbing his forehead; the household charms book was painfully technical and assumed its reader would have a working knowledge of mathematics that was not taught to peasant boys—and in any case it had been years since Charlie had been to any kind of school. But there was nothing for it; it seemed that he’d have to brush up on  _ those _ skills before he could proceed.

He got to his feet and wandered deeper into the library. At the end of one of the shelves he rang a tiny bell and said into the empty library, “I’d like to see the mathematics section, if you don’t mind.”

A playful breeze ruffled his hair, and a small light flickered at the end of the row. He followed it, and it eventually led him to a section stuffed to bursting with mathematics books.

Charlie sighed, and got down to the business of trying to find a book simple enough to make sense to him and complex enough to help him make sense of the technical explanations in the household charms book. He pulled several down, and sat cross-legged on the floor of the library to skim through them for a few minutes.

That was where the bear found him, some hours later.

She poked her great white head around the end of the row and sighed a little. “There you are,” she said.

“Hm? Oh,” said Charlie, looking up from the page that, no matter how he turned it, refused to make any kind of sense. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been there for hours, or so the palace tells me,” said the bear. “You ought to get yourself some lunch.”

“I suppose,” said Charlie, getting to his feet and gathering up his books with a little groan. “Is eating allowed in the library? I wouldn’t want to damage the books or anything.”

“Then don’t get anything on the books,” said the bear. “Not that it would be as—difficult—to fix as an ordinary library, mind. But still, the library will like you better if you don’t.”

They went back to his table near the door, where the bear padded over to peer down at his books.

“Oh,” she said. “You’re reading one of the  _ Classical Examinations _ texts—no wonder you were off looking for the mathematics. I wouldn’t recommend it as a first foray into magical theory, but if it’s where you want to go, then more power to you.”

“I picked it more or less at random,” Charlie admitted. “I wanted something to do with theory, and this seemed as good a place to start as any.”

“Not if you’re not already neck-deep in mathematics it isn’t,” the bear muttered. Very carefully, she raised an enormous paw and tapped one of her long curving claws on the cover of  _ An Overview of Elemental Magicks _ . “This one is much more conceptual.”

“I’d  _ like _ to understand the mathematics involved, though,” said Charlie quietly, and the bear sighed.

“Why don’t you ask the palace for your lunch, and show me where you’re at? I might be able to help.”

“Sure,” said Charlie, and he did as she had proposed.

It turned out that the white bear was extremely knowledgeable about many different things, quite unusually for a wild creature. But then again, he supposed, she wasn’t exactly a typical bear; typical bears, he was certain, did not live in palaces with vast libraries, and they certainly didn’t speak to humans before spiriting them away.

She went away at dinnertime, as was her wont, but when Charlie had retired to the sitting room with its bright fireplace and colorful tapestries and she had reappeared, he posed her a question he’d been wondering about for all the time he’d been at her palace.

“Can you tell me,” he said, “who the girl is who shares my bed at night?”

“She’s nobody,” said the bear. “Or at least nobody of any importance.”

“She was crying last night,” said Charlie quietly. “Is she all right?”

“She’s fine,” said the bear. She ran her claws lightly along the edge of the fireplace, throwing up sparks in their wake. “You needn’t worry about her.”

“All right, then,” said Charlie, who could sense that further argument on the topic would get him nowhere; yet still he wondered. And he did not stop worrying.

Part of the barrier between him and the girl—Nobody, the bear had called her, though she had called herself nothing at all—seemed to have been broken by that night, and the atmosphere in their bedroom in the following weeks was much less stiff.

They still didn’t speak much, nor did they touch often; she didn’t fall asleep in his arms again. But neither was quite so averse to breaking the silence as they had been, and neither flinched back if, in shifting around, they happened to touch each other.

“What are your armbands for?” Charlie asked one night in early spring. He’d been studying magic more, and with that studying came a heightened sensitivity; brushing into her armband had left his fingertips buzzing.

“…They protect me,” said Nobody. “They were a gift from a… a friend.”

“What from?”

“Can’t say.”

“Oh.” He paused. “Is it something I need to worry about?”

“Not here it isn’t.” Nobody laughed a little, but it was more bitter than amused. “Not here.”

She would say nothing more to him that night.

* * *

The days lengthened and grew warmer, and as the six-month mark approached Ruthie grew anxious and restless.

“It’s not fair,” she said quietly to the moon, sitting in the window-seat of their shared bedroom. Charlie was sprawled out on the bed behind her, fast asleep. “It’s not  _ fair _ . I just—I don’t know.” Her words caught in her throat, which was just as well because the moon could hardly hear her words, much less answer her back. Charlie, on the other hand,  _ could _ , which wouldn’t do at all.

When the queen had handed her an ultimatum, in the castle east of the sun and west of the moon, Ruthie had been hardly more than a child. Now she was just eighteen; her birthday had been the week before, but she’d hardly been going to tell Charlie that. It was bad enough that she was talking to him in her own skin. She didn’t need to let him know that either the girl he shared his nights with  _ or _ the bear he shared his days with had the same birthday as Lady Ruthie Smithens.

But—and this was what stuck with her, fueled her anger even as it wrapped her in an awful anxious feeling—she’d been so young. So unknowing; how could she have done anything but what she had?

She did not trust the queen to keep up her end of the bargain, not entirely—well. She  _ did _ trust her to keep to its letter; magic contracts, even informal ones like this, weren’t particularly forgiving. But she knew well that without her armbands her bear-self would have been far more animalistic, and she would have been made far less likely to succeed in her quest.

Absentmindedly, she traced a finger down the silver of the window frame. It wasn’t like her golden armbands; it  _ almost _ itched against her skin. Not quite, but almost, and Ruthie kept it there as a reminder and a warning.

Part of her was tempted to pull it free and work it into a talisman; but this palace was—impermanent. Just because a thing was a certain way here didn’t mean it would  _ stay _ that way, especially if she had to leave. And it was too late, that night, to  _ do _ anything in particular about her worries.

So Ruthie sighed, went back to bed, and fell asleep next to Charlie.

The next night she slept as early as she could, and woke with phantom bells ringing in her ears. It was midnight, then. She got up and slipped from the room, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders; her bearskin she left on the floor. It was heavy and unwieldy when she wasn’t wearing it, and she couldn’t put it on at night once she’d taken it off, just as she couldn’t take it off during the day.

Up she went, up and up, to the top of the tallest tower. She could only fit up this staircase as a human; her bear’s body was too large by far. And she  _ could _ have told the palace to make it big enough for her, but—

It didn’t feel right. And in any case, bears couldn’t use a scrying bowl.

The first thing she did was glance in on the Kittredge family; she had done so intermittently since the beginning, and they seemed to be getting along just swimmingly. Of course she couldn’t hear the words anyone said; at her skill level, scrying bowls were strictly images-only.

Her second attempt was one she made but rarely; she tried to look in on the Riversedge castle, east of the sun and west of the moon, but she was rejected. She always had been; perhaps a true seer could have seen that far, but she was only one young girl with a simple tool.

What she looked for third was simply  _ silver _ ; she needed real silver, if she wanted to make Charlie a ward that would last past the palace’s time of existence. She found there was a silversmith not too terribly far from her, hidden strangely far into the mountains; but she did not question this too much, for the silversmith in question was a woman, and that knowledge brought Ruthie nothing but relief.

She probably should have stopped there; three was a nice, solid number, and all her other ideas were bad ones. But standing there in the tower, in the dead of night, she found herself unable to resist the urge to look into the future.

Ruthie did not try to look into a  _ specific _ future; she knew well that terrible things could befall those who did such things. Instead she asked a general question— _ what is to come? _ —and let the future take her where it would.

The images in her scrying bowl came in a torrent, ripping past far too quickly for her to catch any of them, and so many that she found herself dizzied by it.

There were three that stayed just long enough for her to read them: the first was of Charlie in a room that might have been his in the new Kittredge house, speaking to an older man with a rather unpleasant expression on his face, who looked strangely familiar—the second was of her and Charlie, glaring at each other in the candlelight, and oh how she  _ wished _ she knew when this would  _ be _ —the third was of Charlie, back in his raggedy clothes, crossing the mountains alone. More images whirled past, until finally, with her stomach churning, Ruthie managed to break eye contact with her scrying dish and stumbled back to the wall, which she slid down until she sat upon the floor.

Her head spun, almost as quickly as the images had whipped by her, and she couldn’t get what she’d looked in on out of her mind. Already she regretted it, but—well. She’d done it. And what she had done she could not undo; she couldn’t erase the knowledge from her mind.

And that was where she stayed, barefoot and cold, until the grey dawn began to color the sky, her skin began to itch terribly, and she had to race back downstairs to the bedchamber to collect her skin before Charlie woke.

She made it in time, but only barely, and retreated to the lower levels to sleep the morning away.

After that morning rest, of course, she was hardly at all sleepy the next night, and so she once more took a brief after-dinner nap before getting up again. It was time to get the silver she needed.

For the first time in a very long time, Ruthie dressed herself properly, in a white-and-silver gown. She flipped her midnight-blue hood up over her head, and went out to her grounds. The silversmith she had seen was too far away for her to reach her and return in the night, in her human form. So she whistled a haunting tune, and the North Wind came to her, teasing her skirts and hood.

“Hello,” she said. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it, old friend?”

For a time, in the wilderness, Ruthie had known only the spirits as her friends. The North Wind laughed softly, and wound its way around her.

“I have a favor to ask,” she said. “Could you get me to the silversmith over yonder? I must be back before dawn, you see, else I wouldn’t ask.”

The North Wind laughed again, but scooped her up in its whirl and carried her up, up, up, over the saddle and through the mountains until at last she was deposited before the silversmith’s small house. It tugged playfully at her curls before flipping her hood back up and drifting away. Ruthie swallowed and walked up to knock thrice upon the silversmith’s door.

It wasn’t long before the door was opened by a rather cranky-looking older woman.

“And what’s a fine-looking youngling like yourself doing beating an old woman’s doors down at night, huh?” she said sharply. “All hooded like you are, too!”

“I’m sorry, mistress,” said Ruthie, though she didn’t turn to look at her and she didn’t lower her hood. “I am but a humble traveler, and I had wondered if I might not be able to trade a spell or three for three drachms of silver.”

“A trade, huh? Well, why don’t you offer it in the  _ morning _ ?”

“I can’t,” said Ruthie. “I must be on my way well before dawn.”

“Hmph. Well then. What kind of spells are you talking?”

“That depends on what you need doing,” said Ruthie, twisting one of her sleeves between her fingers. “I can do pretty much anything within reason, but I can’t promise permanency in all my spells.”

“Oh, come in then,” said the woman, still sounding grumpy but perhaps by then resigned to Ruthie’s presence. “Who are you, girl?”

“I’m nobody,” said Ruthie, and the woman snorted.

“And I’m Queen of the land. No, don’t answer that. If  _ nobody _ is your go-to answer I know I won’t be getting  _ that _ truth out of you.” She sighed. “My tools wear thin, my hands are weary, and my granddaughter is ill,” she said. “Can you fix such things?”

“I think so,” said Ruthie. “Let me see your hands.”

The woman’s hands, she found, were mildly arthritic; she bit her lip and then whispered a simple healing charm, then wove a more complicated web around the afflicted areas and let it sink into her skin. The woman sighed in relief.

“What a boon you have granted me!” she said, flexing her hands in wonder. “Even if this does not last, child, you have earned yourself a drachm of silver.”

She then led Ruthie to her granddaughter’s bedroom, where the child lay feverish and wrapped in blankets. Ruthie’s first task was, again, to provide immediate relief; she cooled the girl’s body before targeting the infection and rooting it out, whereupon the girl settled into an easier sleep.

“A healer of many talents,” said the woman, smiling at Ruthie. “Now come—if you wish your third drachm there’s another task for you yet.”

Ruthie nodded, and away they went.

The smithy, it transpired, was across a smallish field bisected by a shallow stream. At its edge Ruthie stopped, skin crawling, unable to take another step forwards.

“Have—have you a bridge?” she asked the woman, not entirely succeeding in keeping her voice level.

“Of course,” said the woman. “Up this way, child.” Ruthie couldn’t see her face well in the night, but she heard the smile in her voice when she went on. “I can’t say I’m much more fond of crossing streams than you are, but needs must after all.”

“Yes,” said Ruthie for lack of anything else to say, and by then they’d reached the sturdy wooden bridge. She didn’t like to cross the stream, even with her feet on solid wood all the while, but she managed it without displaying  _ too _ much visceral discomfort, she thought.

After that it was but a short trip across the rest of the meadow, and they’d arrived at the smithy. While the woman lit a candle, Ruthie looked around; it was small and neat, and most of it looked very well-maintained.

“What tools wear thin?” she asked. “What should I attend to?”

“My bellows, you see,” said the woman. “Down here.” And she pointed and knelt, and Ruthie saw where, indeed, there was the kind of damage that came from long years of use.

Ruthie put two spells into fixing it: one to repair the damage, and another to strengthen the material it was built out of to make it more resilient for the future. And when she was done with that she stood, and the woman was smiling broadly at her.

“Oh, my child,” she said. “You have done what you promised me, and so you shall have your reward.” She placed the three silver drachms into a leather bag then, and pressed it into Ruthie’s hand before turning to the doorway. “Go on now. It’s time you were getting on.”

“Thank you,” said Ruthie, who did not quite know how to articulate her relief that she would be able to ward Charlie against some of the danger they faced, if only a little bit. “Could I—could I ask your name?”

“I’m called Morrigan,” said the woman with a sly grin and a wink. “Now, go. Shoo.”

Ruthie laughed and left, calling up the North Wind to take her home.

* * *

In early July, Charlie woke one morning feeling somewhat awful. The day was warm, but he was cold; he tried to get up, for he had been reading terribly interesting things about the sapience of elementals the day before and he wanted to keep on with that. But no sooner had he begun to try than he found the bear beside him, pushing him back down.

“No,” she said. “You’re sick. I’m doing my best, but I can keep it at bay best if you stay  _ here _ and don’t go elsewhere.”

“…Keep it at bay?” asked Charlie. “ _ This _ is it kept at bay?”

“Like I said,” said the bear, “I’m doing my best. I don’t have much experience with this sort of thing, you know, and not all illnesses are the same.”

The bear stayed with him for much more of the day than she usually did. He talked till his throat grew rough about his childhood, how his life and Redadale had been before all the hard times had come; she listened and did not say much.

“Is there anything  _ you _ can tell me about yourself?” he asked. He’d asked before, of course, and she’d never answered, but he wasn’t focused enough to properly consider that.

“I always used to like fairytales,” she said, low and almost too quiet to be heard. “I didn’t… well. I was just a stupid ki—cub, wasn’t I.”

“There’s nothing stupid about that,” said Charlie. “My sister had a friend—a local noble girl—she always liked them, too. And if she wasn’t stupid for it then neither are  _ you _ .”

The bear made a strange huffing noise that he had learned was her version of a laugh, and said, “You’d be surprised.”

By then the sun was setting, and the bear left him alone to sleep.

He woke in the night to Nobody shaking his shoulder gently.

“Come one, come on,” she said. “Get up.”

“What—”

“Get  _ up _ .”

He did as she said, even as his stomach rolled; when they approached the bathroom, Nobody snapped her fingers, and the candles that usually lit themselves stayed dark. Somehow she had known what he needed before even he had; she sat by his side, a solid, comforting presence, while he sat on the floor near the toilet until his stomach had calmed.

And she stayed by his side as he leaned his head and shoulders out the window and let the cool night air blow over him. After a few minutes of this, he tried to turn to her, but she blocked him from doing so.

“Don’t look at me,” she said.

“Why not?”

“You can’t.”

And she would explain no more.

* * *

It was August when Charlie finally worked out how scrying spells were meant to work. They weren’t like the spells in the household charms book; instead they instructed the would-be sorcerer on how to execute the spells without a clear understanding of the underlying mathematics.

He was pretty sure he understood the theory well enough to execute it, but there was a bit of a problem: the simplest spells all required some external tool, typically a scrying bowl, and he had asked the palace for one but none had been forthcoming.

So he took a break for once, wandering somewhat aimlessly about until the afternoon came around and the bear appeared at his side.

“Why are you wandering?” she asked.

“I was wondering if you had a scrying bowl, or some such tool,” he said.

“Up in the tallest tower,” said the bear. “I can’t get up there myself; bears and scrying tools don’t mix too well, you understand. But you can go.”

“Show me there?” he asked, and she nodded and did so.

“This is where I leave you,” she said at the foot of the tower. “Just don’t do anything stupid. And… I’d recommend you  _ not _ look into the future.”

“Why not?”

“It rarely ends well.” And with those ominous words she turned and left, and Charlie ascended the tower alone.

At the top there was a simple, beautiful room. The only furniture in it was a table that might even have been rising straight from the floor; certainly that was how it appeared. On the table sat a shallow scrying bowl.

He swallowed, and, the bear’s warning on his mind, he first turned his attention to his home as it was in the moment. What he saw cheered him greatly, even as it amazed him; true to her word, the bear had enriched them.

Charlie had not seen such happiness on his parents’ faces in a long, long time and—for having given them that—he thought he would be forever in the bear’s debt.

After that he looked to the royal university in Dolvinden, and his heart ached a little; Nobody and the bear were fine company, of course, but they were the only company he had had for nearly nine months now and he did sometimes wish for a greater diversity of companionship.

How he wished he could have gone to the university still, even with the great wealth of books at his disposal in the palace.

He sighed at that, and pulled himself away from the scrying bowl. The bear had warned him against looking into the future, of course, but—surely it couldn’t  _ hurt _ , to look into the future just a little, to see if he might someday make it to the university.

And so he turned back to the bowl, and tried to scry the future.

As soon as he formed the spell, he knew it would go wrong; it jerked him sideways, away from the idea of the university, and dragged him forcibly to look in on Kit.

She strung a bow, and shot an arrow; she’d been practicing since she’d been a child, but now her arms looked stronger, and her aim was surer than it had ever been—

She pinned her braid around her head, settled a mask onto her face, and flipped up a green hood. Next to her stood Stirling, dressed similarly, and—

There was a moonship in the harbor, and a tax wagon coming up the road just over the hill from it. Kit stood in the road, grinning a humorless grin, and—

The spell cracked and fell apart then, releasing him from its hold, and he stumbled back to the wall, whereupon he turned and stared sightlessly out the window at the evening sky.

Kit would do that, he knew. She’d always felt strongly about House Riversedge, and that had only grown stronger since their difficulties had begun; when Ruthie had gone away (and  _ stayed _ away) those feelings had redoubled. She would take her bow, and Stirling, and whoever else she could recruit and she’d make them enemies of the crown.

Charlie couldn’t let that happen.

Afterwards he never could remember how he got back downstairs; his mind was half-numb in a dreamlike state, but when he saw the bear, head settled on her paws at the base of the staircase, his awareness snapped back to him.

“I have to go home,” he said in a rush. “Not—not for long. But I have to visit.”

“Why?” asked the bear, slow and suspicious.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I looked into the future—I know I shouldn’t have! But I did, and my sister, she’s going to do something  _ monumentally _ stupid if no one manages to talk her around.” He paused. “And besides,” he said, “I do rather—miss them, you know. My family.”

The bear sighed. “Very well, then,” she said. “I’ll take you there tomorrow, if you can make me a promise.”

“Name it.”

“You have a crotchety old uncle,” said the bear. “While you’re home, he’s going to try to get you alone to talk to him.  _ Don’t let him _ .”

“Uncle Hendrick?” Charlie snorted. “Your wish is my command, though really you didn’t  _ have _ to say anything. I prefer avoiding the man all on my own.”

“But you promise?” asked the bear.

“Yes. I promise.”

And so it was done: in the morning they set out, and in the early evening they arrived, entirely unannounced.

Kit was the first to spot him, and she gave a little yelp before rushing out the door to crash into him with a hug. “Charlie!” she cried. “You’re back!”

“Not for too long,” he said, “just tonight, maybe tomorrow. But yeah, I’m back. How have you been? You look good.”

“So do  _ you _ ,” said Kit.

The last time the Kittredge siblings had seen each other, they’d been underfed and overworked; now, they were neither, and both of them seemed the picture of health.

His parents and the boarders came out to greet him then, and in the commotion he hardly noticed the bear slipping away from him and melting into the forest unseen. For such a great creature with her coloring, it was almost shocking how stealthy she could be.

They welcomed him in, and he saw no sign of stress on them for the sudden new mouth to feed; that alone told him a very great deal.

“How have you been?” “Is that bear treating you well?” “What  _ have _ you been doing?”

Charlie just smiled, let the questions wash over him. He’d missed them all, with an ache he hadn’t realized was there till it abated; and he let them bring him into their new dining room (and fancy that! a dining room,  _ separate _ from the kitchen!) where dinner lay waiting.

Of course, Uncle Hendrick had to be there, being his usual curmudgeonly self, and the bear’s warning echoed in Charlie’s ears. He pushed it away; it would, he was sure, be  _ fine _ .

All his family were terribly glad for him, when he told them about the wondrous library; at fifteen, he had  _ not _ been shy about his disappointment in being unable to attend the university.

“Bah!” said Uncle Hendrick when he mentioned magic. “Why you’d want to study such a disgraceful branch of things, I can’t imagine.” Inky, who must have come with him, barked his cantankerous agreement.

“It’s  _ interesting _ ,” said Charlie, wisely deciding not to mention the true reason he’d come home. “And besides, we live in a world  _ with _ magic, you know. To ignore it seems terribly foolish to me.”  _ And besides all that _ , he did not say,  _ I’m living in an enchanted castle with an enchanted bear. Why would I not be interested in magic? _

Thankfully, though Uncle Hendrick grumbled, he didn’t say much of anything for the rest of the meal. After they were done, Kit led him upstairs.

“We put together a room for you,” she said, “though we weren’t sure when you’d be coming home.”

“That’s nice,” he said. Once they’d gotten to his room, and he’d looked around a bit, he looked at Kit. “I learned to scry,” he said, “in the bear’s palace.”

“You  _ did _ ? How’d it go?”

“I… I looked into the future,” he said. “And I meant—I meant to look for my own future, you know. But I ended up seeing yours instead.”

“Oh,” said Kit. “What’d you see?”

“I shouldn’t say,” said Charlie. “I don’t want to make it happen. But I wanted to ask you not to do anything stupid, at least as long as I’m away.”

“I won’t,” said Kit, and she grinned at him. “When have I ever done something stupid, anyway?”

Charlie raised his eyebrows. “Barge. Jail. Will Shepherd.”

Kit winced. “I was  _ twelve, _ ” she protested, as if that made it any  _ better _ .

“And old enough to know better,” Charlie said dryly.

After a moment’s pause, Kit said, “Tell me more about the bear’s palace?”

“What’s there to tell?” he asked rhetorically. “I’ve already told you most everything.”

“Is there anyone else there?” she asked. “Servants, maybe?”

“No,” he said. “There’s some elementals who hang around, acting like it—a will-o’-the-wisp to lead you about in the library, a breeze to send you on your way, that sort of thing—but there aren’t any other people about.” Here he paused, considering, but he thought there would not be  _ too _ much harm in telling  _ Kit _ , at least, who he knew could keep a secret. “Well, maybe one.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, there’s a girl,” he said. “She—comes to my room at night.”

“Charlie!” Kit yelped, clapping her hands over her ears. “I don’t—you’re—why would you  _ tell _ me that!”

“We don’t do anything,” said Charlie. “We never have. We  _ literally _ just sleep  _ next _ to each other.”

“Huh,” said Kit, having by then lowered her hands. “That’s peculiar. Who is she?”

“Nobody,” said Charlie, “or at least that’s what she tells me.”

* * *

Uncle Hendrick came knocking on Charlie’s door just as he was readying himself to go to bed.

“I’m tired,” Charlie told him, which was true. “Can’t we talk in the morning?”

“Not likely,” said Uncle Hendrick. “You’ll just be running off with your  _ bear _ come morning, and I know you won’t want to be talking to  _ me _ .” He stepped towards Charlie then, who stepped back to avoid a collision, and before he knew it Uncle Hendrick was in his room and they were alone.

“It’s a disgrace,” Uncle Hendrick said once he was inside. “A shameful thing, that you’ve been sent off with some  _ creature _ without so much as a single offer for some girl’s hand!”

“Uncle Hendrick!” Charlie snapped. “I seem to remember the  _ last _ time I saw you, you were up in arms about how I’d  _ never _ be able to carry on the family line, seeing as I was too poor for a bride. And seeing as this is the first time I’ve been home since I’ve  _ not _ been ‘too poor for a bride’ I’m not sure when exactly I’m supposed to have betrothed myself to  _ anyone _ .” He had some vague, formless suspicions in that regard; but Nobody had told him he couldn’t know her name, nor her face, and he tried not to think too much about the ideas floating in the back of his mind.

“Nonsense,” said Uncle Hendrick. “What about this girl you’ve been  _ sleeping _ with?”

Charlie, who had been looking away, froze. He slowly turned back to Uncle Hendrick, and saw the edges of a grin disappearing from his mouth. “I didn’t know you’d stooped so low as to consider  _ eavesdropping _ on  _ private conversations _ ,” he said slowly. “Last I heard you were far too  _ well-bred _ for such lowbrow tricks.”

“You don’t deny it, then,” said Uncle Hendrick. “There  _ is _ a girl.”

“I mean—does it matter what I say, now?  _ You’ve _ decided that there’s a girl, and no amount of my denial would dissuade you.”

“Is she pretty, this girl?” he asked, ignoring Charlie’s words entirely. “You do have noble blood through my side of the family, you know, even if your mother  _ did _ have to go off marrying a  _ common _ man. Whatever bride you pick should look the part.”

“I don’t know,” said Charlie, weary of the discussion and Uncle Hendrick’s presence both. “And I don’t happen to particularly care, since I’ve no plans to  _ marry _ her.”

“You used to have a discerning eye,” said Uncle Hendrick, pacing the room; Charlie snorted at that, for not even a year earlier his uncle would have said that not even a sow would settle for a man as impoverished as him. “Does living around such a beautiful building sap your desires, then?”

“Not particularly,” he said. “It’s just that I’ve never  _ seen _ her.”

It was Uncle Hendrick’s turn to freeze. “Never, you say?” he asked, voice sounding faintly strangled. “Never at all? Not even once?”

“No,” said Charlie, who was hating the conversation more every minute but couldn’t figure out how to back out of it now.

“Then you’d best beware!” said Uncle Hendrick, curiously earnest. “For all you know, you sleep each night beside a troll.”

“I… doubt that,” said Charlie. He’d felt her skin, and knew her shape; he did not think that trolls would be nearly so soft, nor shaped  _ exactly _ as a human girl.

“They are deceivers,” Uncle Hendrick insisted. “They can trick your senses, but not all of them at once—wait a moment.” He turned and left the room, leaving a bewildered Charlie staring after him.

Not two minutes later he returned, with a short stub of a candle in his hands.

“Take it,” he said shortly, pressing it into Charlie’s hands. “It will reveal your  _ girl _ for what she truly is, if you light it while she sleeps.” Then he turned and left, giving Charlie no chance to return the candle to him.

Charlie shook his head, and set the stubby candle down on his nightstand before climbing into bed. He would not, he decided, be bringing it back to the bear’s palace with him; he trusted that Nobody meant him no harm, and he did not want to betray her trust.

At some late hour, he half-woke to Nobody curled against him; his bed at home was much smaller than the one they shared in the palace, and she had no choice if she wanted to stay in the bed.

He tucked an arm around her, and went back to sleep. In the morning, as was her wont, she was gone.

* * *

“Charlie,” Ruthie said the next day around midmorning, while she ran like the wind across the countryside and he held on tight to her coat, “I know you talked to your uncle.”

“I’m sorry,” said Charlie. “I tried to avoid him, but he’s—pushy.”

“I just have to ask you for one thing,” said Ruthie, who had somewhat expected Charlie to fail in abiding by her request; the words  _ you cannot change what has been foreseen _ echoed in her mind, half-remembered from some technical magic book she’d read as a child. “Whatever he said to you—don’t listen to it, else you’ll bring misfortune on us both.”

“Don’t worry,” said Charlie. “I won’t.”

Ruthie ran on, saying no more. And she did not stop worrying.

* * *

That night, when they arrived back at the palace, Charlie felt something in his pocket. With an odd, unsettled feeling he drew it out; it was Uncle Hendrick’s candle stub, though he was  _ sure _ he’d left it on the nightstand that morning. He had no plans to use it, of course, but—

He hadn’t wanted the temptation. Yet here he was, holding it anyway.

“Curse you,” he muttered, and he stuffed the candle stub into the back of one of his dresser drawers and tried to put it out of his mind.

Nobody was human—she had to be—he’d seen and felt too much of her, even if he’d never laid eyes on her face, to doubt that. But he found Uncle Hendrick’s dire warnings come back to haunt him time and again, and after two weeks had gone by he found it nearly unbearable.

He didn’t speak to the bear about it; if she knew what he’d been instructed to do, she hadn’t mentioned it. And he certainly couldn’t say anything to Nobody.

Finally, when nearly a fortnight had passed and it was creeping around to September, something curious happened to sway him. He woke abruptly at some unknowably late hour, and when he groped around on the nightstand for something—he knew not what he searched for—his hand found the candle stub.

Only half-awake and with the candle in hand, he did not find the strength within himself to stop. He carefully disentangled himself from the bedding, stood, and padded around to Nobody’s side of the bed. Once there he swallowed hard.

The easiest elemental for him to call was fire, and so it was that he pinched the candle wick between his fingers and lit the little stub. It flared easily to life, illuminating far more of the room than it seemed it should have.

This was the last point at which he could have turned back; he did not  _ have _ to look down at Nobody’s face. But of course he did.

She  _ was _ pretty, of course. Pretty, and distinctly human, and he was about to snuff out the candle when she shifted and rolled so she was facing him, and—

“Ruthie?” he said, too surprised by far to keep his voice hushed.

Her eyes opened, and she stared at him briefly before covering her face with her hands. “Oh,  _ hell _ ,” she said, and lifted one hand briefly to snap her fingers. The candles in the room’s sconces lit themselves; Charlie’s candle flickered out. “Hell,” she said again.

Charlie said nothing. He did not know what to say.

“Aren’t you going to  _ ask _ me anything?” Ruthie snapped. She affected a deep voice. “‘Hey, Ruthie, long time no see! What are you doing running around as a bear in the day and  _ sharing my bed _ at night?’ No? No questions?”

“You’re angry,” said Charlie softly, setting down his stub of candle.

“I hadn’t noticed,” she said. “It was only the  _ one thing _ I asked you not to do, and you just  _ had  _ to go and—”

“I’m sorry!” he said, words finally coming to him a little more smoothly. “I’m  _ sorry _ , Ruthie, I don’t know what came over me. I just—I don’t know.”

“I was cursed,” she said, simple and matter-of-fact. “I was to be a bear by day, girl by night, for seven years or until I could get a man to sleep at my side every night for a year and a day, without ever looking on my face. Whichever came first. And if I should fail in this task—which I just  _ have _ , by the way, thanks ever so for that—then I’d have to go back to the Riversedge castle, east of the sun and west of the moon, and marry Prince Richard.”

“What’s wrong with that?” asked Charlie. “I mean—you don’t want to. But you’d be a princess, after all.”

“He tried to enchant me into saying yes,” she said. “Three days after I got there, he asked me to marry him; three days later I said no, and his mother cursed me. Get off my skin, please. I can feel you standing there and it’s not very pleasant.”

Charlie, startled, stepped back and off the white bearskin he’d hardly paid any mind to before; though now that he thought of it, it wasn’t a typical feature of the room.

“Thanks,” said Ruthie, though she didn’t sound especially sincere. He found he could not blame her.

“Is—is there anything I can do?” he asked. “To fix this, I mean. Make it right.” Standing there in the too-harsh candlelight, he felt wretched and overexposed.

“Maybe,” she said. “I mean— _ maybe _ , and it’s not going to be safe for you.”

“Tell me how,” he said. “I’m the one who—who messed all this up, after all. Let me try to fix it?”

“Fine, then,” said Ruthie, and she sat up and pulled open the drawer of her nightstand. “Take off your shirt.”

Charlie almost choked at that, but he did as she said; when she turned to him, she was holding three leather straps in her hands.

“These aren’t finished,” she said, “not like I meant them to be—they were going to be finished in October or November, you understand, in case House Riversedge tried to pull something shady. They’re supposed to protect against mind magic entirely—like these do for me.” She raised an arm and tapped one of her gold bands. “They won’t work very well, but you should at  _ least _ be able to  _ tell _ if something’s messing with your mind. Even if you can’t fight it properly.”

She buckled the two smaller straps around his arms, just below his shoulders, the same place that her bands sat. There were cold spots on the backs of his arms; he gave her a curious look.

“Silver,” she said. “That’s where most of the warding comes from—there’s silver talismans in these.” Then she put the last one about his neck.

He tugged at it awkwardly; he would have rathered not have anything about his throat, but he supposed there was little help for it.

“I know,” said Ruthie, “I’m sorry it’s not better, but I’m hardly an expert at crafting magical items. I don’t know how to wrap such a ward into two points like these.” She held up her arms to display the bands. “Anyway. Don’t take these off, not even to sleep—they won’t do you any good if they aren’t against your skin.

“The hardest part of this,” she said, “for you at least, will be to  _ get _ to the Riversedge castle—you can’t take a moonship, after all, and I don’t know how else to get there when you’re not tied to it somehow. You’ll have to work that out on your own.” She looked at him grimly. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I haven’t much time.”

She flung her arms around him then, and he hugged her back, both of them holding just a little harder than was comfortable.

“Find me in the Riversedge castle, east of the sun and west of the moon,” she said. “We’ll sort it out.”

“I’ll get there as fast as I can,” he promised, stepping back.

“I’ll stall as much as  _ I _ can,” said Ruthie in turn. She hesitated for a moment, then darted forward and stood on her tiptoes to press their lips together. A moment later she’d stopped kissing him. “Sorry about this,” she murmured, “but I need to go.”

She tapped his forehead, and he knew no more.

* * *

When he woke, he was alone in the dew-laden valley, the dawn just breaking over the eastern mountains. His fine clothing had been replaced by the worn work clothes he had arrived in, and next to him was the small bundle of clothing he’d brought all those months ago. The palace, too, was gone as if it had never been; he might have almost thought it a dream were it not for the slightly rough leather of Ruthie’s talisman around his arms and throat.

She didn’t know how to get to where he had to go, not along the paths he would need to take; and he knew not how to begin. All he knew was that the moonships began their journey by going north, but he suspected his own would not be so simple.

Perhaps, though, going northward would help center him. Help him decide what to do next. He spared a thought for his family; if this palace had gone he hated to think what might have become of their newfound riches, but he could not dwell upon such matters. Whether what they’d gained was gone or not didn’t matter—his path was the same either way. The only thing he could do to help was to track down Ruthie, to make his way east of the sun and west of the moon.

It took him the better part of the morning to climb to the northern saddle, and when he got there his heart sank; the mountains stretched out before him as far as the eye could see, and he knew not where to go. He could lose himself in the mountains, he knew; and he had no guide.

…but perhaps he could find himself one. He drew a deep breath and let out a low warbling cry, and felt the earth ripple and rumble beneath his feet in response.

“Earth, my friend,” he said, “do you know how to get to the Riversedge castle, east of the sun and west of the moon?” The rumbling slowed, and the earth began to still. “Wait!” he cried. “Do you know anyone who might be able to help? Can you show me that far?”

The earth-spirits’ rumbling and rippling grew then, and before he knew it he found himself all but pushed around the side of the mountain, following the rumbling earth into the west.

Charlie traveled many leagues that day, many more than his legs could ordinarily have carried him in such a short time. But the earth-spirits were friends of Ruthie’s, and they spurred him on, aiding him when he felt he could go no further, until finally when the setting sun shone into his eyes they let him go. He was at the edge of a farm backed up into low rolling hills; he wearily crossed the fields to knock upon the door.

It was opened swiftly by a person he hadn’t at all expected to find  _ here _ .

“Aunt Millie?” he said weakly.

“Heavenly day!” she said in turn. “Charlie Kittredge, as I live and breathe. Come in, come in.” She ushered him inside and sat him down at her well-worn kitchen table, and set food and drink in front of him before she sat down across from him.

“Now,” she said as he slowed in his eating, “what brings you here? For it’s not just anything that would get the earth-spirits so riled up, and I daresay you’ve a tale to tell.”

“Not a very nice one,” said Charlie. “I did something terribly foolish. And now, well,  _ now _ I’m doing all I can to get to the castle east of the sun and west of the moon without taking a moonship, and I asked the earth-spirits for help, and they led me to you.”

“Hmm,” she said. “Well! I can’t say I know how to get there straight from here, but you can certainly stay the night, and I think I might know someone round these parts who could tell you a bit more.”

“All right,” said Charlie. He sighed heavily and leaned back in his chair, running his hands over his face. The day’s stubble was rough under his palms, and, he realized, he had no way to rid himself of it.

Let it stay, then. Let it remind him what he had had, and what he had lost.

“Charlie,” said Aunt Millie, “you’re going after the princess-to-be, yes?”

“Yes,” he said. “I just—I broke a promise, when I  _ knew _ I shouldn’t, and now it’s all a mess.”

“Now, none of that,” she said, looking sternly upon him. “I’m sure you’ll manage to make it right.”

“I hope so,” said Charlie, who was not nearly as certain of this as Aunt Millie seemed to be.

The next morning, she sent him on his way with a golden apple from her orchard tucked into the sturdier pack she gave him to hold his things.

“Ask the river,” she said. “It ought to be able to guide you where you need to be—try Will Shepherd, some leagues southwest of here, if you need more direction.”

“All right,” said Charlie, and he was off.

He went down to the river, whereupon he brushed a hand across its surface and began to sing to the river-spirits.

The water twined about his wrist, and he smiled sadly at it. “I know you can’t take me to the Riversedge castle,” he said, “but that’s where I’m trying to get in the end, to save Ruthie—I know she’s your friend, too. Aunt Millie said Will Shepherd could help—do you know where he is?”

Briefly the water tugged at him before retreating; a moment later it swirled up from the riverbed, and a horse stood there, all made of water, upon the river’s surface. It tossed its head at him and Charlie, though he was hesitant at first, climbed onto its back.

They were off at a gallop then, faster than any horse of flesh could have gone, upstream along the river, and Charlie could only hold on for all he was worth and hope the river would not lead him astray.

Mid-afternoon brought him to the base of a high grassy hill, and the river-horse took him to the edge of the water before letting him slide gracelessly from its back. It tossed its head towards the top of the hill, and Charlie gave it a grateful smile.

“Thank you,” he said, and it nudged him briefly with its nose before collapsing back into the river. He turned and began to walk up the hill.

The view from the top of the hill was of more rolling hills and valleys, and on the hill across the low valley from this one was a flock of white sheep. Charlie set off towards them.

He reached them after some indeterminate length of time, and wove his way through the throng until he reached the dark-haired young man who sat cross-legged atop a boulder, a shepherd’s crook across his lap, feeding a crow.

“Hey there, stranger,” he said, giving Charlie an easy grin. “What brings you to my humble hill?”

“My aunt sent me to you,” said Charlie. “Or at least I think she did. Are you Will Shepherd?”

“That I am,” said Will Shepherd. “What had Miss Millie sending you my way, then? You must be her nephew.”

“I’m trying to get to the Riversedge castle,” he explained. “And I can hardly take a moonship to go there.”

“Well, I can hardly tell you how to get there,” said Will, “but I think I know someone who could better help you. It won’t be easy to get to him, though—he’s sworn off human contact.”

“I don’t care,” said Charlie. “I made a promise. And I can’t break a promise again—not when I’ve so wholly screwed things up by breaking promises the first time round.”

“If that’s the case, then I’ll help you as best as I can,” said Will. “You shouldn’t set out tonight, though—you’ll have to cross the Northern Marsh, and you’ll want to do that at night.”

Charlie stared at him. “At… night.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It sounds crazy, I know, but you asked the river to get you here, right?”

“Right.”

“So it seems you’re on good enough terms with the spirits, and the will-o’-the-wisps only like to come out at night.”

“Of course,” said Charlie. He’d never met a will-o’-the-wisp out in the wild, only the domestic ones back in the palace, and he had only heard that the wild ones were dangerous things more inclined to lead you astray than to help you.

“Don’t worry.” Will got to his feet, sending the crow flying on its way, and began to gather his sheep back to him. “Like I said—you’re on their good side.”

* * *

Charlie arrived at the edge of the Northern Marshes at sunset the next day. He sighed a little, muttered, “Here goes nothing,” and hummed a short motif. Fire’s cue always  _ had _ been the easiest for him to remember.

Far away from him, in the distance, a ghostly blue light appeared. He rolled his shoulders, and set off towards it; each step he took was prefaced by lightly poking the ground in front of him with the golden staff Will had pressed upon him.

As he approached the will-o’-the-wisp, it vanished, and another appeared farther along; and so it went until the sun rose over the horizon and Charlie, exhausted, stumbled at long last onto solid land.

He had not reached the edge of the marsh, far from it; but for whatever reason in the middle of its flat expanses there was a small log cabin. Halfheartedly he forced his tired legs to carry him up the path and knocked thrice upon the door.

When the man who lived there opened it, Charlie wondered briefly if he might be seeing things, for the man was none other than—

“Lord Smithens?” he said weakly. Awkwardly he gave the man a half-bow. “What are you—I mean—”

“…Charlie Kittredge,” said Lord Smithens. His hair had gone gray since Charlie had last seen him, his clothing was plain, and his face was weathered and lined now. “I suppose you’d best come in.”

Charlie followed him inside, and saw that the cabin was plain and neat, and it was very clear that the man lived alone.

“What are you doing out here in the marsh?” Charlie asked. It was true, he’d not been seen around in years, but they had all thought he was off doing his work as Warden of the Eastern lands, not hiding in the Northern Marsh while Lady Lily Smithens ran his lands  _ for _ him.

“That’s not a very nice story,” said Lord Smithens. He fixed Charlie with a piercing gaze. “But I’m not as out of the loop as I look; I know you’ve been with my daughter, and I know you’re going after her. So I might as well explain.” He sat Charlie down at the table and settled across from him.

“Three years ago now,” he said, “a moonship from the Riversedge castle docked in our harbor. You know this, of course, and we’d planned it all—Ruthie was old enough. It was time she went to court, to make connections of her own.

“But it wasn’t simply servants who came with that moonship,” he said. “They had with them a pretty young man with black hair and blue eyes, and he came to see me in my study one night.

“‘Your daughter is beautiful,’ he said to me. ‘I would marry her, if you would let me.’

“I told him I couldn’t just  _ say yes _ to that on the spot; I’d have to consult with her mother, and of course Ruthie herself, before I made that promise.

“‘Why, don’t you know who I am?’ he said. I told him of course I knew—he was Prince Richard, heir to the throne. He laughed at me then.

“‘Then you see that you cannot deny me,’ he said.

“After that… well, it’s a bit hard to keep track of. I know only that he used some strange magic on me, and I did in the end sign over Ruthie’s hand, as did her mother. But I know also—I’m sure he cut it out, if he showed her the statement, but I added in a clause he did not want me to put there.” He stopped, staring tiredly into the distance.

“…What was the clause?” Charlie asked finally, his heart in his throat. He had the oddest sense that he was on the brink of something  _ important _ .

“She can ask her husband-to-be to complete a task,” said Lord Smithens. “And should he fail, she needn’t marry him; indeed no one can force it upon her, then.”

“I suppose I’d best get there as soon as I can, then,” said Charlie.

Lord Smithens frowned at him. “You’re not going anywhere today,” he said. “You’re absolutely dead on your feet—go, sleep a while. I’ll wake you in the evening and send you on your way.”

“All right, I suppose,” said Charlie, who itched to leave but was too tired to really protest. He collapsed onto the man’s simple bed, fell asleep, and did not dream.

True to his word, Lord Smithens woke him many hours later with a rough wooden flute in one hand.

“I’ll call the East Wind for you,” said Lord Smithens, the ghost of a smile on his face. “I’m still warden of the Eastern lands, and it turns out there’s a few perks associated with that.”

He played a long, haunting melody on the flute, and did not stop until the wind rose around them.

“East Wind,” said Charlie, “would you take me as far as you can? I seek the Riversedge castle, east of the sun and west of the moon.”

The East Wind curled around him, then swirled itself into the barely visible form of an enormous bird. He climbed onto its back, and away they went, flying through the night.

They went to the West Wind, who in turn took him to the South Wind, who carried him, finally, to the North Wind, who deposited him atop a mountain before shaping itself like a ghostly boy.

_ “Why do you call me?” _ it asked in a voice that echoed in his ears.

“I’m trying to get to the Riversedge castle,” said Charlie. The sun was setting, and all around him the air glowed red. “Ruthie’s in trouble. This is the only way I know to help her.”

_ “You wish me to carry you east of the sun and west of the moon,” _ said the North Wind.

“Can you do it?”

_ “I once blew an aspen leaf there. Afterwards I was so weary that I blew nothing else for three long days—but yes. I can do it. And Ruthie has always been… kind… to us. I will take you there in the morning.” _

“Thank you,” said Charlie, and a ghostly laugh sounded in his ears as the boy’s image blurred and dissipated.

_ “Don’t thank me just yet. And get some sleep.” _

Charlie opened his pack then so as to find his travelling cloak, which would keep him warm through the night, but he was stopped short by the glittering gold at the top of his pack, which he had  _ certainly _ not placed there himself.

There was a note, too, which he picked up and opened to see it was from Lord Smithens, and told him that the fabric was a cloth-of-gold shawl he and Lady Smithens had meant to give Ruthie as a wedding present.  _ There is another letter here, _ it added,  _ for Ruthie. Give it to her when you give her the shawl, especially if you cannot speak to her. _ Charlie frowned a little at that, but he dug the traveling cloak out past it and let it be. He would have a chance to worry about it once he arrived at the castle.

At dawn the North Wind woke him, and took on the form of a gliding bird.

_ “Hold on tight,” _ it warned him, and then they were off.

For three days and three nights they flew north, over mountains and plains and finally over the sea, so fast that Charlie hardly knew what to make of any of it. At dawn on the third day, Charlie saw high, glittering spires ahead of them, glowing red in the sun, and he knew that they had arrived.

* * *

He couldn’t go after Ruthie immediately, of course. The three-day journey had left him utterly exhausted, and he lay down and slept for another day and night, the North Wind curled next to him.

On the fourth day, he approached the castle, which had two soldiers, one stationed to either side of its great doors.

“Halt!” one said imperiously. “Who goes there?”

“Just a boy from a provincial town,” said Charlie.

“And what is your business here?”

“I come bearing gifts for the prince and his bride.”

“A likely story,” said the guard. “Why don’t you just show us the…  _ gifts _ … and you can be on your way.”

“That I cannot do,” said Charlie. “It would be terribly ill luck for me to do  _ that _ , and it would bring misfortune on all involved.”

“Then be on your way, boy,” said the other guardsman. “The House Riversedge does not exist to see ruffians like  _ you _ .”

“Now, now, now,” said a smooth, silken voice as the doors swung silently open, revealing between them a young man with black hair and bright blue eyes, “there’s no need for  _ that _ .”

“Your highness!” said one guard, and both knelt for him at once. Charlie bowed, though he did not much want to; it wouldn’t do to openly offend the prince now, of all times.

“Rise, rise, all of you,” said the prince carelessly. Charlie straightened; the guardsmen sprang back to their feet and stood at attention. “Now,” said the prince, meeting Charlie’s eyes and catching them, “tell me—who did you come here to find?”

And Charlie found that he could not lie. “Nobody,” he said. “I came here for Nobody.”

“Hmm,” said Prince Richard. “But you come bearing gifts—why?”

“I am only a young commoner,” said Charlie slowly, “and I know little of the ways of royalty. But I do know that there are gifts which will bring your bride luck; and they will bless any happy couple gifted with them. I come bearing three.”

“Well, then.” Prince Richard smiled, and Charlie could breathe again. “One of you, show him round to the commons entrance—hand him over to someone, make sure he’s clean before he presents his gifts. I can hardly say no to gifts for my bride, after all.”

“Yes, your highness,” said the first guardsman, and all three of them bowed as the prince went back inside. The guardsman glared at Charlie. “Well, come along,” he said snippily. “This way. We haven’t got all day.”

Charlie followed him.

* * *

They had not put Ruthie in the same room they had given her when she’d been fifteen. Instead they’d put her in a bright, airy room high in the North Tower. It was beautiful, but not particularly large, and she mostly wasn’t allowed to leave.

It was daytime, and she was human; that in and of itself was enough to make her twitchy and nervous. She had not been human for more than a few minutes past dawn in three years.

Her clothing, too, gave her pause; she’d been put in rich colors and complicated cuts that seemed just as alien to her now as being human in daylight. Of course, they’d tried to take the gold bands from her, but she thought Prince Richard might  _ almost _ be softening towards her personally, because when she’d broken down crying he had allowed her to keep them, even if he had not looked happy about it.

A knock came, then, upon her door. It swung open without her having to move, and the footman Tristan stood there at attention.

“Milady has been summoned to the throne room,” he said stiffly. “I will be escorting you to the bottom of the tower, from where his most royal highness Prince Richard will escort you.”

“All right,” said Ruthie, who was if nothing else at least glad to get out of the tower. She stood and followed him down the long spiral staircase, then rested her hand lightly on Prince Richard’s arm and followed him in turn to the throne room.

For this audience, at least, they were settled to the queen’s left, both of them together. When all of them—she, Richard, and the queen—were seated, the doors swung open, and a single, backlit figure stepped inside. He came down the middle of the throne room, and, a third of the way down, knelt. And there he stayed.

“Rise,” the queen called.

The young man, dressed all in black, rose and continued his path towards them. When he was halfway there, Ruthie thought she knew who he was, and when he was two-thirds down the room she was gripping the left arm of her ornate not-quite throne with white-knuckled fingers to keep from visibly reacting in any other way.

“Your majesty,” said Charlie Kittredge, bowing low to the queen. “Your highness.” He bowed to Prince Richard. “Milady.” He bowed to Ruthie, who found she rather hated to see him do that. “When I heard of the prince’s betrothal,” he said, “I had to come here; for I come bearing gifts for the happy couple.

“For you, your highness, my prince,” he said, turning to Prince Richard, “I bring you this shepherd’s staff, so that you may be a shepherd to your people, and guide them through times both good and bad.” He extended a golden staff to Richard, who took it although he appeared faintly puzzled by it.

“Thank you,” said Prince Richard.

“For both of you, that you may be forever blessed in your union, I bring you this golden apple,” said Charlie, and he placed the apple in Ruthie’s hand. It was heavier than she had expected it to be; and as Richard took it from her, Charlie turned to her and gave her a tiny smile.

“For you, milady,” he said, “I bring you this shawl, fit for a father’s wedding gift to his daughter, that you may do your family proud.” He settled the cloth-of-gold shawl in her arms, and into one of her hands he slipped a piece of what felt like paper.

“Thank you,” said Ruthie, hurrying to tuck the paper into her sleeve while her hands were still concealed beneath the shawl. “We will surely be blessed by having been given such generous gifts.”

Charlie was dismissed after that, and Ruthie—as she’d expected, really—had the shawl taken from her to be put away in her room. Prince Richard took her on a long stroll through the autumn gardens.

They were beautiful, of course, as was everything around the Riversedge castle, and Ruthie was glad to be outside in the warm autumn air, but with the edges of the paper digging into her left forearm she found herself wishing that she might be left alone, even if only for a moment.

“Ruthie,” said Prince Richard, “are you happy here, truly?”

“I don’t miss turning into a bear each day,” said Ruthie. “And the man I was courting betrayed me. Why wouldn’t I be happy?”

“You don’t seem quite right,” he said. “Distracted, perhaps. I don’t want you to feel we’re rushing into this, after all.”

Ruthie stopped and turned to stare at him, utterly incredulous. “You asked me to marry you when we’d known each other  _ three days _ ,” she said. “What do you  _ mean _ you don’t want to rush into this?”

“Well,” he said, sounding a little flustered, “I was younger then, and much more foolish.”

“Believe me,” said Ruthie, “I don’t think we’re going to be rushing into anything.”

“Excellent,” said Richard, and he smiled at her in a way that  _ almost _ made her feel bad about trying to get away from him.  _ Almost. _

Up in her room that night, Ruthie finally had the chance to pull the paper from her sleeve. Before she did that, though, she cast a quick ward around herself, one that ought to at least initially discourage prying eyes.

She pulled the paper out, unfolded it, and read her father’s words.

When she’d finished that, she wiped her eyes on her sleeve and burned the letter to ash in a candle flame.

As long as Charlie managed to put in another appearance by her wedding, scheduled three days hence—and maybe even if he didn’t—she had, she thought, a Plan.

* * *

It really  _ was _ awfully rude of the royal family, Charlie thought, for them to just throw him in the dungeon without even giving him a chance to explain himself. Something about “trespassing” and “acting suspicious.” The queen and her guards had been wholly unimpressed by his point that it had been Prince Richard himself who’d invited him into the castle.

He didn’t actually know how long he had been there; sunlight didn’t penetrate down to the lowest levels of the castle, and no one had been by in what seemed like hours. Charlie had slept, and woken to find food and drink laid out for him; he had eaten it, and slept again almost at once.

Now he was awake once more, and there was more food; his stomach complained and, groggily, he reached for the food.

“Don’t do that,” said a girl’s voice from beside him. “You’ll go right back to sleep if you eat that.”

Charlie flinched badly, and turned to see a teenage girl kneeling next to him. He stared.

“How did  _ you _ get in here? I thought this was, you know, the dungeons?”

“There’s a network around the castle,” said the girl. “And anyway that’s not the important matter—you’ve been down here two and a half days. It’s early morning—Lady Ruthie’s getting  _ married _ this afternoon.”

“What,” said Charlie, suddenly awake. “Wait—but—I’m—I’ve got to—”

“I know,” said the girl. She tapped his forehead three times. “Hold on,” she said, and no sooner had he done so than he felt the world melting around him.

The world settled, but when it had done so he found that he’d been transported to an entirely different location. He turned to the girl, who looked entirely unapologetic; she had shoulder-length red hair, he saw, and was dressed as a maidservant.

“Come on,” she said, leading him over to a nearby closet. “Let’s see…” She rifled through the uniforms far more quickly than he could follow. “This one ought to fit.” She pulled it out and thrust it at him. “Put that on, and quickly,” she said. “I’ve got to go change myself. Wedding rehearsals start at dawn for us servant-folk.”

“But I’m not—” said Charlie, confused.

“You’re a footman,” said the girl. “A footman called… Tam. I’m Nell, by the way. And you need to shave.” She pointed to a small door that he’d not noticed before. “Through there.” Then she left the room, leaving Charlie to change, as she had instructed, into the footman’s uniform, and to shave the rough stubble from his cheeks and chin.

The uniform was more structured and formal than anything he had yet worn; luckily, the high collar was high enough to hide the ward about his throat. Looking in the mirror to straighten his jacket, he hardly recognized himself—which was, he supposed, a good thing. If even  _ he _ couldn’t recognize himself, the chance of anyone who’d seen him only once doing so was quite small.

The door opened, and an older man dressed in the same uniform stepped inside.

“I’m Tristan,” he said.

“I’m Tam,” said Charlie, almost-but-not-quite stumbling over the unfamiliar name.

“Indeed you are,” said Tristan. “You’re Tam, my simple nephew who’s newly come here, all right?”

Charlie opened his mouth to answer, paused, closed it again, and nodded.

“Excellent,” said Tristan. “Come on now—follow me. The rehearsal’s about to start.”

The wedding rehearsal was, it turned out,  _ exceptionally _ boring for the footmen, who simply lined the walls of the great hall in which the wedding was to take place and stood still, with neutral-to-pleasant expressions on their faces, for the vast majority of the time. They filed into the hall in a semi-complicated way, the more senior footmen escorting ladies’ maids and the junior ones escorting maidservants. Charlie found Nell resting her hand lightly on his arm; she gave him a tiny wink before spiraling off to her own place in the hall, and Charlie filed into his spot next to Tristan.

There he stood for much of the remainder of the morning, until finally,  _ finally _ , they broke for lunch. 

Down in the kitchens, Charlie was subject to many a curious look, but they at least did not bombard him with questions after Tristan told them that, yes, he  _ was _ new, but the poor lad—his nephew!—was quite simple and couldn’t answer any of their questions.

At least he could trust the food—everyone would need to be awake and have their wits about them for the ceremony, so  _ it _ , at least, was unlikely to knock him out again. He found it was good, if plain, and after his journey and days in the dungeon he ate eagerly.

And then it was early afternoon—the clocks were striking thirteen—and it was time for the wedding.

Charlie and Nell walked in together, as they were scripted to do, filing in behind the nobles of the court; he split from her, and took his place, and tried to calm his anxiety even as he stood at sharp attention.

When at last everyone, from the highest noble down to the lowliest servant, was in place, the great doors swung open and Prince Richard walked in with his mother. Both he and the queen were resplendent, he in snow-white and the queen in icy blue. The musicians played, and they walked to the altar together, and turned.

Then in the doorway stood Ruthie. She wore a white gown, as fancy as anything Charlie’d ever seen, with the cloth-of-gold shawl around her shoulders.

For a moment there was silence, and then the bride’s music began, and Charlie watched the girl he’d come to love (and wasn’t that a funny word, love?) walk towards the prince she was to marry.

Two-thirds of the way down the aisle, she knelt, head bowed, skirts billowing gently out around her. The music went silent.

“Your highness,” she said, in a tone that seemed quiet but somehow filled the room, “I have come before you on this day with the intent of marrying you. Is there anything you wish of me, before this can be done?”

“There is nothing I wish of you more than your love,” said Prince Richard, which was the customary response. “Rise, Lady Ruthie.” She did so, and he stepped forwards and knelt in turn to her.

“Milady,” he said, “I have come before you on this day with the intent of marrying you. Is there anything you wish of me, before this can be done?”

“Yes,” said Ruthie, and a shock rippled through the room. “I have always been fond of riddles, you know. And I would have for a husband none who cannot answer them to me. Will you grant me this, before we say our vows?”

“But of course, milady,” said Prince Richard. “Riddle away.” He was smiling, but somehow Charlie did not much like that smile.

“I have three riddles,” said Ruthie. “And he who can answer these riddles three—why, he I’ll let to marry me.” She smiled gently at Prince Richard. “Rise, Prince Richard,” she said. “You needn’t stay on your knees for this.”

He stood slowly, and tensely, and Charlie did not like his expression at all. 

Ruthie cleared her throat, and said, “This thing all things devours:

“Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;

“Gnaws iron, bites steel;

“Grinds hard stones to meal;

“Slays king, ruins town,

“And beats high mountain down.”

“Time,” said Prince Richard, hardly missing a beat.

Her smile, for some reason, widened a little, and she said, “Voiceless it cries,

“Wingless flutters,

“Toothless bites,

“Mouthless mutters.”

This time, Prince Richard did not answer so easily. He looked to his mother, then to the crowd; slowly he swept his gaze over them all, and when he reached Charlie’s area, Charlie felt something poking at his mind, only to be foiled by the tenuous guard of Ruthie’s ward. He tried to think of nothing at all, and felt the presence move on when Richard looked away.

“The wind,” the prince said finally, and Ruthie’s smile sharpened.

“Last riddle, then,” she said. “What’s inky and dark and sheds everywhere?”

Something in Charlie’s mind caught on her wording, tried to make sense of it; the rest of him quashed that down as, once more, the prince cast his gaze over the room.

The answer, he thought, was beginning to come to him; but it was not an answer that Prince Richard could get from anyone else, and Charlie’s mind was protected. It was not a  _ fair _ riddle. Then again, the prince himself had hardly played fair in his attempts to gain Ruthie’s hand; it only made sense that they might play as he did.

“I don’t know!” Prince Richard snapped finally. “But how could I know? That’s not a proper riddle—why, I’d wager that no one in all this room could have answered that!”

“I’d beg to differ,” said Ruthie. “Why,  _ I’d _ wager that even that footman over there could answer it!”

“Well,” said Richard, with a clear derision in his voice, “let him come over, then. See if he  _ can _ .”

And so Charlie crossed the room, and bowed to the royals and to Ruthie, and waited.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Tam, milady,” he said.

“Well, Tam,” she said, “it’s only fair if I ask you two other riddles before you try the third—you heard the answers to the first two, after all!”

“Of course, milady,” said Charlie. “As you wish.”

“What has roots as nobody sees,

“Is taller than trees,

“Up, up it goes,

“And yet never grows?”

Charlie thought. He thought of all the different landscapes he had crossed to bring him here; of all the places he’d passed right by. Of the night he’d spent, atop the North Wind’s—

“A mountain,” he said, and all the crowd drew in a breath. Ruthie smiled at him, but the smile had lost its edges—it was a softer smile, meant just for him.

“Very good,” she said. “Now—

“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt,

“Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt.

“It lies behind stars and under hills,

“And empty holes it fills.

“It comes first and follows after,

“Ends life, kills laughter.”

Now Charlie was reminded of the Northern Marshes, of the depths of the dungeons beneath his very feet, and he was quicker with his answer. “The dark,” he said.

Ruthie grinned, even as the assorted nobles grew very, very still. “Now tell me,” she said, “what’s inky and dark and sheds everywhere?”

“Why, that’s easy,” said Charlie, because he knew the answer, and because he knew it would infuriate Richard. “A scottie dog, of course!”

“That’s right!” said Ruthie. She turned to look back at Prince Richard and the queen. “It’s a shame,” she said, so sincerely that Charlie himself almost believed her, “I’d hoped to be queen, after all. But a promise is a promise, and it looks like I’m to marry this footman Tam.”

“Rubbish!” said Prince Richard. “You’re marrying  _ me _ . Your father promised me you, and you I shall have!”

“Richard,” said Ruthie, a low warning, “I wouldn’t, if I were you.”

“Wouldn’t  _ what _ ?” he spat. “Take what should have been mine all this time?”

“Wouldn’t break contract,” she said. She turned, and looked at the queen, then returned her gaze to Richard. “I know you took out the clause from what you showed me, but I know what my father wrote. And I know that it’s not a good idea to renege on a magical contract.”

“You are in my castle,” said the queen suddenly, “and here, my word is law. Guards, seize him.” Two guards promptly appeared, and held Charlie in place. They didn’t take him away, which he was glad of; this was still salvageable, he though.

“Now, girl,” said the queen. “It is as I have said: my word is law here, and it is my will that you shall marry my son.”

“You have broken contract,” said Ruthie, very, very quietly. “And you have not listened, even when I gave you many chances. I am sorry about this.”

And at once she knelt down, whereupon she whistled sharply, snapped her fingers, and slammed one palm into the ground.

The fire that lit around her soon reached out to encircle Charlie too; the guards who’d seized him jumped back with singed hands. Beneath their feet, the ground rippled, and through the open doors the wind rushed in.

**_“She has broken contract,”_ ** said Ruthie in a voice that was not her own,  **_“and she will not cease. He has broken contract. He, too, will not cease.”_ **

Then the North Wind grabbed up the queen and Prince Richard, and took them from the room, and from that day they were never again seen on the land where the Riversedge castle stood, east of the sun and west of the moon.

The fire died away, and the ground stilled; all around them the nobles of the court erupted into furious shouts or furtive whispers. There was still much to be sorted out, and the court would never be the same again.

But in the middle of it all were Ruthie and Charlie, now standing with their arms wrapped tightly around each other as if they feared to let the other go. And never again would they be separated, even by a place as far away as the castle which was east of the sun and west of the moon.

**Author's Note:**

> So there are a lot of people without whose help this fic would have gone unwritten, unfinished, or just not as good, and I want to thank All Of Them, so…  
> First I’m going to thank graveExcitement and rimenorreason, for willingly listening to all my panicked flailings about how _long_ this was getting and how close to the deadline it Still Wasn’t Done.  
> Then I’m going to go to calenlily and silverr, both of whom were integral to me figuring out how to adapt some of the fairytale elements of East of the Sun and West of the Moon to this fic and getting it to work right.  
> And last but most _certainly_ not least I’d like to thank elijah_was_a_prophet and Dalia, both of whom listened to my flailings and talked things through with me and did beta tasks and were Very Important to this fic both getting finished and becoming Actually Good.
> 
> …would you believe me if I said that I genuinely just. forgot. what Ruthie’s fairytale in _Really Truly Ruthie_ was when I was planning this? Because I did forget that entirely, for a time.


End file.
